Sydney Mubaiwa
MIDLANDS BUREAU

GWERU – The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development has said that it requires at least ZWL$55 trillion to fully function throughout 2024.
This was said by the Ministry’s Chief Finance Officer Peter Mudzamiri during submissions to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands and Agriculture last Tuesday.
Mudzamiri said the Ministry is big and has several programmes under implementation, thus the need to have a commensurate budget.
“The expenditure to date only reflects what has been paid, at present, the Government is on cash accounting, and some might have been consumed but not yet paid. ZWL$1.6 trillion has been paid. Our projection is as of the end of this year, we could spend ZWL$2.1 trillion cumulative from January to December.
“We invited parastatals to prepare the ideal budget which they think will effectively deliver their intended programmes. Each parastatal submitted a bid. The total bid from the Ministry comes to ZWL$55 trillion,” he said.
He also added that the Ministry has been allocated a ceiling of ZWL$2.9 trillion for the 2024 budget by treasury.
The Ministry’s Permanent Secretary Professor Obert Jiri recently told a Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU) conference in Gweru that the Ministry is going to plead with treasury for allocation of more funds.
“Our budget is never enough and our programmes are too many. We are pleading with treasury to increase our envelope so that we can fully implement our goals,” he said.
The Ministry was allocated ZWL$362 billion which was later revised to ZWL$1.6 trillion for 2023.